Walk into the Greetings From Colorado shop on Concourse A, and you might walk out with a T-shirt manufactured in Haiti — boasting the wrong date for the founding of Denver. Wander over to Denver's Picture Show Popcorn, and you'll find neither a Denver-based movie (a rare commodity, admittedly) nor Colorado corn. For a true taste of this state before you leave it, your best bet is the New Belgium Hub on Concourse B, at the bridge to the regional jet facility. Here you can not only enjoy many of the delicious beers brewed by the Fort Collins-based brewery, including Fat Tire, but you can order up a full meal with a distinct Colorado flavor — and even pick up food to go. Now, if we could just convince DIA to set up concourse carts that sell growlers of the beer that made this state famous; what better souvenirs could travelers take back to their brewpub-poor states? And remember, since you've already cleared security by the time you reach the concourses, there's no liquid ban to dry up this surefire marketing scheme.

There's a lot to recommend about Gimme Anime, but integrity is the foremost reason to feed your cultish obsession for Japanese animation, comics, serial graphic novels and accessories there. Owners Roger Morse and Emily Morse-Lee run a strictly bootleg-free business and stand by the quality of the stock, both new and consigned, that they put on the shelves of their Aurora strip-mall shop. But it's also an encyclopedic go-to for the very best stuff around, decked out with locally made fan art, where they'll gladly bend over backwards for you with special-ordering and wish-list services. Plus, the store offers a Gimme Manga frequent-buyer's card that will net you a free Fruits Basket (or other serial comic) for every nine that you buy and will provide meeting space for fellow mangamaniacs. That's not just retail; that's community.

Common Threads is a combination high-end used-clothing consignment boutique, local-product gift shop and creative lab, where you can learn to repurpose your newly purchased secondhand rags or send your kid to a spring-break sewing camp. Designed also with a dual purpose — to serve at-risk girls from Boulder's AIM House with special programs and to cater to the public at large — its all about the woman-to-woman experience (though guys are certainly welcome) with a green tinge, offering everything from a mentoring helping hand and a friendly stitch-and-bitch atmosphere. Believe it: This is the boutique of the future.

Anna Bé is exactly what you always imagined a wedding-dress shop would look like: a charming boutique with exposed brick walls and four neat rows of simple, elegant designer dresses; one massive pedestal before a three-tiered mirror; and not another bride in sight. Adorable, never-pushy co-owner Anna is only concerned with you. She'll bring you and your friends champagne and stay out of your way while you try on the first few dresses. Then she'll casually hang a dress outside your door and suggest you give it a try. It looked plain on the hanger, but on you, it's absolutely perfect.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. In a perilous economy, lots of people look to precious metals and collectable coins, but there are plenty of weirdos in the field as well as professionals. We like Dave Eichenberger's shop because the folks there are friendly, well-versed in the eccentricities of coin collecting, never intimidating and eminently fair, both in what they sell and what they pay for old coins and jewelry. Dave dispenses good advice for collectors, can spot a three-legged buffalo nickel in a pile of mere spenders, and can perform a quick assay to let you know if Grandpa's ring is real gold or 99 percent pure ersatz. And that's what you want from professionals these days: a quick winnowing of the chaff from the golden wheat.

So the photography nut on your gift list has asked for a stack of hardcover photo books by people with names like Lee Friedlander, Alfred Stieglitz and Annie Leibovitz. Don't know where to turn? Camera Obscura Gallery has plenty of fine art; in fact, the gallery and store claims to have the biggest selection of photography books in Colorado. Plus, they'll let you peruse the books before you buy them. Spend an afternoon there flipping through some of the best photos ever — then solve your gift-buying problems in a flash.